Why don’t these companies just park a truck at the station and return the bikes themselves? The tourists will still get to ride the ferry back so no lost revenue and the rest of us don’t have to heavily subsidize these rental companies.

http://profiles.google.com/sean.rea Sean Rea

I made the mistake once of taking the ferry from FW to Angel Island. The AI->SF ferry made a stop in Sausalito for about 30+ minutes while all the bikes were loaded. During the entire duration the boat belched smoke out.

http://thegreatermarin.wordpress.com/ OctaviusIII

Sausalito should seriously consider joining the BAAQMD/San Francisco Bikeshare system. The DC system is heavily used by tourists, and a properly designed Sausalito segment could go a long way to improving bike access for tourists; no need to load the bikes on, just park them at the station at either end of the terminal.

http://www.sanfranciscoize.com/ Mark Dreger

The only challenge would be the one-way nature of GG Bridge tourist bike trips. Few want to brave the hill to go back to SF. You would still have to (by truck or boat) bring all the bikes back.

mikesonn

Which is why the private rental companies should be providing their own means of transporting the bikes back to the city. How much more pleasant will it be for the cyclists to be able to return to the city without their bike and having to worry about returning it.

Anonymous

I had that exact same experience the only time I ever took that ferry. Is this a common occurrence? It’s not a timetabled stop.

http://profiles.google.com/sean.rea Sean Rea

I’m not sure, but it caught me off-guard as well.

http://thegreatermarin.wordpress.com/ OctaviusIII

@twinpeaks_sf:disqus The great thing about bikeshare in DC is that it’s free after you buy your daily/weekly/monthly/yearly subscription, but only for the first 30 minutes of each ride, and they’re generall terrible for the sort of SF to Sausalito ride people do. That should discourage people from using them to do a long ride, but also pay for the movement of getting them back. If it does get to be too many, you could put a bikeshare station on the ferry itself that can only be filled up on the Sausalito side, or disallow bikeshare on the Bridge.

Andy Chow

Bike sharing won’t work because someone would have to transport all these bikes back. That’s why the bike rental companies and ferry operators come out with this arrangement (a mutually profitable one) to have the tourists to bring their bikes back via the ferry.

Bike share is a system to promote short term bike usage for daily commuters. It is not intended to replace or compete with existing bike rental companies.

mikesonn

A mutually profitable one? The tourists will still have to return via ferry, but it will be much better if the company actually making a profit (the rental companies) paid to return these bikes themselves.

Bike share isn’t the answer and would again push the cost of returning the bikes on the public.

Andy Chow

How are you subsidizing those companies? The Blue and Gold ferry to Fisherman’s Wharf is a for-profit operation.

I don’t know what’s going on in the minds of those at Golden Gate District, but I can tell you that if Golden Gate decides to pull out or somehow allows another provider, at least one more company will be eager to provide additional trips to serve the bike crowd. Red & White Fleet tried to apply for a permit to provide additional service along the corridor but was actively opposed by Golden Gate and Blue & Gold.

Golden Gate charges more for the shorter Sausalito Ferry (using slower vessels) than the longer Larkspur Ferry (using faster vessels). They both take 30 minutes one way. So already Golden Gate is profiting from (or not subsidizing as much on) the tourists that they’re not getting from the Larkspur service.

There are some folks at transit agencies still pretend that they run a profitable operation and is against private “competition”.

http://thegreatermarin.wordpress.com/ OctaviusIII

In DC it doesn’t compete with the bike rental niche either. Bike rentals are for checking out a bike for a day or more; bike share is for short hops of 30 minutes or less, and tourists generally use it for around an hour. It’s intended for commuters, yes, but it is used quite a bit by others.

The proposed method is a good one for the moment, but with Marin already exploring whether to implement bike share in the county, it would behoove us to consider how to leverage it for the tourist crowds in Sausalito, and how to prevent Sausalito from becoming a dead end for bike share bikes.

Anonymous

If there were a problem with too many people riding bikes one-way to Sausalito, you could perhaps offer some sort of bonus to people who did the opposite. After all, people probably don’t care too much if they take the bike there and ferry back, or vice versa.